The Cost of Cybersecurity: Risks and Responses on the Rise

February 17, 2015 – In The News

The Legal Intelligencer

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Scott L. Vernick was quoted in The Legal Intelligencerarticle, “The Cost of Cybersecurity: Risks and Responses on the Rise.” Full text can be found in the February 17, 2015, issue, but a synopsis is below.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights has settled a case with two New York hospitals for $4.8 million over a breach that saw nearly 7,000 patients’ information compromised.

The settlement is further evidence that the cost of cybersecurity is increasing exponentially, as is government enforcement, attempted breaches, the sophistication of breaches and the lawsuits that result from breaches.

Scott L. Vernick, a noted privacy attorney, has put a price tag as high as $200 for each record compromised, and that is before litigation.

By that estimate, data breaches in the first quarter of 2014, which saw 176 million records exposed according to the Open Security Foundation's DataLossDB, would’ve reached costs of $35.2 billion.